


Static

by justalittlegreen



Series: Sunshine and Filth [15]
Category: MASH (1970), MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Love, M/M, Phone Calls, The Long Road, erin hunnicutt - Freeform, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 00:13:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16608149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justalittlegreen/pseuds/justalittlegreen
Summary: transcontinental small talk really isn't worth it. except when it is.





	Static

BJ calls right after she puts Erin to sleep. She picks up and hears the telltale static on the line, furiously starts doing math in her head - it's just past 7pm which makes it noon tomorrow in Korea - and sure enough the first words he says after "Peggy? Peg? Are you there?" are "I wanted to grab you while everyone was off at lunch."  
  
Peggy answers with a level of enthusiasm that should fit the situation, but feels divorced from the timbre of her own voice. Her mouth says "Darling, hello! It's so good to hear you. Are you all right?" while her head spins with the intrusive, nauseating images of BJ and Hawkeye kissing against an anonymous brick wall.

Her imagination, she's discovered, is a cruel beast when it wants to be.

BJ goes on to tell her about the latest of camp things - a supposed hepatitis outbreak, a good surgery, Klinger's latest outfits. She smiles at the descriptions of hats and pleats, remembering how delighted she was to play at being a Christmas elf to help BJ get him those stockings. Her end of the conversation is mostly small murmurs and the occasional "oh?"  
  
The one thing he doesn't talk about - the gaping, glaring omission - is Hawkeye. Peg doesn't know what to make of it at first, is so disoriented she hardly notices it, but when she does realize what he's skipping, his warm banter suddenly sounds flat. Empty. Even lifeless, like greeting-card poetry from your most beloved.  
  
Peg remembers the letters that left out Hawkeye, how they sounded like that, too.  
  
She assumes Hawkeye never showed him the letter she sent - whatever tacit permission he read into it, whatever message he took, he didn't share it with BJ. The realization makes her stomach knot up again. He must have known that the tension between the two of them would send BJ into a guilty spiral. The same reason she hasn't said anything.   
  
Damnit. How in the world did she end up in cahoots with Hawkeye Pierce to spare her husband pain?  
  
  
It's Peg's turn to talk, so she keeps it as light as she's been all along - Erin is always a safe subject, and never short of funny and clever new things to tell. Here, at least, she still feels like they're connected. Hawkeye may have Korea, and all of BJ with him, but Peg has a tether that binds them across war and continents. They will always be able to agree that Erin is more important than either of them. Even as images of BJ in bed with another man make her double over in pain, the most comforting thoughts she can conjure are the memory of him in the rocking chair, holding their brand new baby and quietly singing as she slept, and something smaller - how when Erin woke in the night, BJ would always get up and bring her to Peg. He never slept through those midnight feedings, letting Peg rest as much as she could, sharing the bleary-eyed wonder of those first hard weeks.  
  
BJ the father is the part of him that is still wholly hers, whatever else may come. And so she talks about Erin, and she can feel herself relaxing, feel her mind slowly coming back to her body, and the chuckles on the other end of the line are real and whole and alive.  
  
It's just enough.   
  
By the time BJ has to hang up, Peg almost doesn't want him to go. They go through the dance of not wanting to hang up first, and she's about to put the phone down, truly, this time, when he stops the playfulness and says "Peggy?" in a voice that sounds halfway lost and halfway home.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I love you so much. You know that?" It hangs in the static between them. The connection, which forces them to shout, can erase a lot of nuance in a conversation, but there's no mistaking the ache in his voice. That tenderness. That complete opposite of slick maneuvering, that guileless, open, loving heart at the core of everything between them.   
  
"I - " Peg catches the " - love you, too," before it flies out of her mouth. It's true. It should be true. It  _must_ be true.   
  
"I know."   
  
"You do?"  
  
"Yes, BJ," she says, using his name for emphasis. "I know you do."  
  
It's just enough.


End file.
